Saturday, December 13, 2008

Could the Auburn circus be packing up its tent?

I can't find where I read it, but someone out there somewhere claimed to have seen Skip Holtz's sudden withdrawal of his name from the Syracuse search as proof that the Orange had made their decision: Holtz gets out while the gettin's good, and he can say he rejected the Orange rather than have them reject him. And sure enough, later that same day, the Orange Dr. Daryl Gross, Esq., picks that NFL guy and they're done.

So consider my ears pricked when, a day after Gary Patterson withdraws for reasons that don't make a whole lot of sense, Jimbo Fisher finally says the words he tap-danced around like the late Gregory freaking Hines at that Quarterback Club Meeting: "I'm staying at Florida St." Could it be that having gotten word that Auburn's settled on someone else, Fisher's finally free to drop the mask of interest?

It's doubtful. I think there's still a few more miles to go before we Auburn fans can sleep again, but it's something to think about. And of course, no point in not thinking about who that "someone else" could be. Auburntron, take it away:








Auburntron's also, sadly, linking up this surprisingly free column in which Marshall essentially claims the choice is made, and that the choice is Gene Chizik. Marshall's site was also reporting just a few days ago that Auburn was all over Steve Spurrier, so sorry, I'm not buying this at all. Again: not even Fail Jacobs could get behind the selection of a head coach who's one season away from being fired at Iowa State. It's not happening. I'm not even going to let myself think about it for very long, because I'll break things.

It's Gill, or it's another few days of searching. And while the Tech beat writer can claim that no news is good news for them and that coaches rarely come right out and say "I'm staying," you know, sometimes they do ...

UPDATE: Now Derek Dooley has withdrawn his name from consideration. Scratch the "don't read too much into it" sentiment; something is happening.

UPDATE the second: Goldberg talks up the seriousness of the Chizik threat but, perhaps more importantly, says he was on the phone with Gill's lawyer and said lawyer says Gill hasn't been told anything one way or the other.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

ISU fans on some of the message boards are saying Chizik is a done deal. I feel sorry for him if its true. Most AU fans won't give this guy a chance and I don't blame them. Let's choose the better BIG 12 coach: Chizik or Leach? hmmmmm

Anonymous said...

its a done deal, and it is a damn shame! i am an alum and i have donated $2000/year for the past 5 years along with season tickets. i am really thinking about stopping this contribution, because it makes me sick to think about how i might be helping fund this mess.

they spent $5.1 MILLION to run off tubs to hire chizik?

Unknown said...

Rivals.com says its a done deal. Gene Chizik is the next coach at AU. However, none of the other major websites(ESPN, CNNSI etc) are reporting it yet.

AU fan in MN said...

Now they are!!! :( Please tell me this is a bad dream!!

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3767115

http://www.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/11168387

Anonymous said...

Please kill me. At least I can stop spending all that money on season tickets now.

Jaiden_S said...

I can't believe this. I keep waiting for Ashton Kutcher to show up and tell us we've been Punk'd.

Terrible hire. Just awful.

Anonymous said...

way to fire up the fan base and make a big splash. retards.

Anonymous said...

I have made previous comments here that I wanted Leach partly so we could add the Pirate to our long list of mascots. Unfortunately, this entire foolish search may make us forever the TigerWarEaglePlainsmenClowns.

In defense of Chizik, I think (hope) he is a better HC coach than his ISU record suggests. His body of work as a DC certainly suggests so. Unfortunately, I can't imagine him being secretly awesome either.

Now that we can look back at this whole process in hindsight, I have two horrifying thoughts:

1) FJATPTB placed AU connections at the top of the criteria, meaning that Garner and Nix were in fact serious candidates.

and/or

2) That any/all respectable candidates didn't like what they saw once they got a look under the covers and removed their own names.